I can actually speak from experience having owned both a 27" Samsung 120Hz and a beautiful Korean 27" S-IPS screen.

120Hz is visibly gorgeous. The fluidity has no equal. However, the number of modern games that consistently run at over 120FPS is small, unless you are prepared to overclock your CPU, spend on high-end GPUs and also compromise on visual settings. Worse than that, the vertical viewing angle of any 120Hz gaming screen I've encountered has been horrible, and I went to see several before picking the one I thought was best (least bad?) Any game that is dark and moody will be horrific, inverting gamma at the top of the screen whilst washing out at the bottom. Being TN, it's 6-bit colour as well, so your washed-out or inverted shadow detail will be grainy and noisy.

2560x1440 without viewing angle problems or washed-out colour is just so much nicer than 1080p for EVERYTHING with the sole exception of very fast-paced games. Even many FPS games don't really benefit from 120FPS because they're too slow and the FOV is too low. I think I enjoyed driving games like Dirt3 and a friend's login of Project CARS the most, but it's not as if they're horrible at 60fps either. Now, you still need a powerful GPU because 60Hz at 1440p is almost as demanding on the GPU as 120Hz at 1080p but the CPU is only processing half as much information so you can get by with a lesser chip or lower clocks.

For movies, photo work, general internet browsing, RTS games, dark or shadow-rich games, games with busy UI's, games with rich colours, games that include motion-blur, and even games that are quite fast-paced, an 8-bit IPS screen is preferable to anything TN, no matter how many Hz it runs at.

Do what I did - buy one of each; After realising that the 120Hz screen wasn't ever getting used, I eBayed it and now have a pair of 1440p IPS screens. If you want a game that really highlights the enormity of what you are missing on a 120Hz TN panel, run Diablo 3.

Some people ask me why I have always enclosed my signature in spoiler tags; There is a good reason for that, but I can't elaborate without giving away the plot twist.

What a garbage post. People like you infuriate me. It's fine to have an opinion and feel strongly it, but it's another thing altogether to evangelize, throwing factual accuracy out the window in the process.

Chrispy_ wrote:I can actually speak from experience having owned both a 27" Samsung 120Hz and a beautiful Korean 27" S-IPS screen.

Sure, me too.

Chrispy_ wrote:the number of modern games that consistently run at over 120FPS is small, unless you are prepared to overclock your CPU, spend on high-end GPUs and also compromise on visual settings.

What? This is REALLY disingenuous. You don't have to get "over 120fps", you have to get "over 60fps" before it makes a difference. I was pulling >60FPS in Blacklight: Retribution, TERA Online, Crysis 2, and more, at max visual settings, with a pair of GTX460s, one of which was a gift and the other I paid less than $100 for.

Chrispy_ wrote:Worse than that, the vertical viewing angle of any 120Hz gaming screen I've encountered has been horrible, and I went to see several before picking the one I thought was best (least bad?) Any game that is dark and moody will be horrific, inverting gamma at the top of the screen whilst washing out at the bottom.

I don't have these problems, but then, I bothered to calibrate my VG248QE. Maybe you didn't calibrate your monitor? Obviously if you leave the brightness and contrast turned way up, it's going to look awful. What you lose -- as a single user sitting in front of the device -- with a properly configured TN panel is nothing but contrast.

Chrispy_ wrote:2560x1440 without viewing angle problems or washed-out colour is just so much nicer than 1080p for EVERYTHING with the sole exception of very fast-paced games.

1440p @ 27" is only 108 DPI. 1080p @ 21" is 105 DPI. The colors are better, for sure, but the resolution isn't relevant.

Chrispy_ wrote:Even many FPS games don't really benefit from 120FPS because they're too slow and the FOV is too low.

I disagree. I find that any game with motion benefits, because the motion is smoother.

Chrispy_ wrote:I think I enjoyed driving games like Dirt3 and a friend's login of Project CARS the most, but it's not as if they're horrible at 60fps either.

So you say. I find Shift 2 almost unplayable at 60hz after playing with 120hz LightBoost.

Chrispy_ wrote:Now, you still need a powerful GPU because 60Hz at 1440p is almost as demanding on the GPU as 120Hz at 1080p but the CPU is only processing half as much information so you can get by with a lesser chip or lower clocks.

What? LOL! This is totally wrong. It depends on the game of course, but for the overwhelming majority of games, the simulation is still running at the same speed, so the CPU demands are the same the same scene. What a ridiculous statement.

Chrispy_ wrote:For movies, photo work, general internet browsing, RTS games, dark or shadow-rich games, games with busy UI's, games with rich colours, games that include motion-blur, and even games that are quite fast-paced, an 8-bit IPS screen is preferable to anything TN, no matter how many Hz it runs at.

That's a nice opinion you have there. I -- and others -- disagree. My girlfriend has a YAMAKASI CATLEAP, and while it does look very nice, I sure wouldn't want to game on it. It blurs noticeably compared to my VG248QE at 120hz, and the difference between her CATLEAP and my VG248QE when the latter is in LightBoost mode is so stark even my girlfriend's MOTHER can see it. "The colors are richer over here, but -- gosh, wow, look how smooth that is! That's eerie!" she said.

Chrispy_ wrote:Do what I did - buy one of each; After realising that the 120Hz screen wasn't ever getting used, I eBayed it and now have a pair of 1440p IPS screens. If you want a game that really highlights the enormity of what you are missing on a 120Hz TN panel, run Diablo 3.

People like you who feel so strongly about 8-bit panels must have more cones than people like me. Yeah, the CATLEAP looks great; I'd never argue it doesn't, and if you're not sensitive to blurring, then I'm sure it's fine. My girlfriend plays Rusty Hearts just fine on hers, and I'm sure I could get used to it; the rich and bright colors of that game look fantastic.

They also look good on my VG248QE. Muted, for sure; there's less contrast, as I said, but they still look good, rich and vibrant thanks to the insane backlight on the VG248QE. I'm sure your 120hz TN did look washed-out, grainy, and awful at the default settings.

I like IPS displays. I have two of them hooked up to my PC all the time, and I enjoy their good qualities, but saying that TN monitors look so much worse in comparison as to be unusuable is just crap. It's all subjective, of course, but when people like you go around making posts like this, it really grinds my gears, because plenty of folks using slow IPS displays could really benefit from a high-quality 120/144Hz monitor; they're sacrificing display responsiveness and image fluidity for image quality and color depth that they probably don't even appreciate. Until you get into the >$400 monitors with nice S-IPS panels, the only real benefits of IPS over TN are the better viewing angles, and for a single user, that just doesn't matter that much -- especially if you have your displays on an adjustable mount, like a wall-mount.

Maybe this is just me, but viewing angle has never been a issue for me. I've never found myself standing up while playing games, laying down while playing games, playing games adjacent from my monitor, or upside down.

Now if you're talking about a TV, where everyone in a single room has to be able to see the TV and they can't sit directly in front of it there may be some merit here, but the monitor is always pointed at me and besides the 4" traversal of my chair that can go up and down, that doesn't usually change.

As Auxy pointed out, 144hz makes a difference when FPS is simply greater then 60fps. Even then you still get a benefit from it simply because you always have the absolute latest information available to your monitor so it never skips a refresh (helps with tearing).

The whole "It needs to be greater then X number in order to be beneficial" argument is largely fallacious though. For instance, some people think that having a response time for pixels lower then 8ms I think it is doesn't matter, because your refresh rate of your monitor is 60hz. Completely discarding faster then 60hz monitors, that is the morph time of the pixels. If pixels still morph in a 1ms time frame, that means you will have the absolute clearest picture available to you when a refresh comes in, regardless of how often that refresh happens.

The variables aren't all dependent on eachother.

IPS monitors DO look prettier. That is hands down the benefit of IPS monitors, but when it comes to motion, "smearing" as always comes around, especially in high motion games (like FPS's). In that case TN monitors are the pretty ones.

I'm not going to lie though the VG248QE has noticeable issues with white balance. But that's once again a image quality sacrifice for performance.

1.Even if you say that the cutoff for a 120Hz panel looking better is 60Hz (which is not the case if you use vsync to avoid tearing) and even in easy-on-the-hardware game like Bioshock Infinite (which, I quote, "really doesn't need that much horsepower"), more than 60 fps average is not going to happen on anything less than $230 of hardware. Going by the Steam hardware survey we've already eliminated 95% of all current gaming PC's using Steam. That's a GPU-friendly game on an old engine. Expecting fluid 120fps gaming without IQ compromises is strictly the realm of the very rich or the realm of the retro, vintage gamer.

2. You can't calibrate to get around the vertical gamma shift in a TN panel, to "not see it" and to suggest such a thing can be fixed by calibration is to show incomplete understanding of how TN panels work.

3.DPI is neither relevant to this discussion nor helpful in your claim that my post is garbage; 1440p is more information than 1080p at every DPI in the same way that a 1080p Blu-ray shows more detail than a DVD, whether it's at 200dpi on a tiny, squinty screen or 20dpi projected 6' wide across a wall.

4."almost unplayable at 60hz" As in, you almost cant' play it? I would assume that's a bit of an exaggeration, otherwise that really does make you a special case. People were twitch-gaming on 60Hz arcade cabinets, marvelling at their fluidity before you were even born.

I'm not going to say that 120Hz gaming at 120fps isn't great.I'm simply pointing out that if comes with a great many caveats, not the least of which is far, far more powerful hardware requirements.I am going to say that for many things, TN screens are pretty lousy, and that is backed up by the vast majority of LCD panel reviews on the internet.

Some people ask me why I have always enclosed my signature in spoiler tags; There is a good reason for that, but I can't elaborate without giving away the plot twist.

Bensam123 wrote:Maybe this is just me, but viewing angle has never been a issue for me. I've never found myself standing up while playing games, laying down while playing games, playing games adjacent from my monitor, or upside down.

It's an issue with multiple displays, but I do agree--speaking as someone who has used both TN and IPS--that IPS's features, while nice, are overhyped. Ditto on the >60 FPS argument...I'd wager that even many of the proponents of a 120Hz rig wouldn't know the difference if they didn't have Fraps.

Bensam123 wrote:Maybe this is just me, but viewing angle has never been a issue for me. I've never found myself standing up while playing games, laying down while playing games, playing games adjacent from my monitor, or upside down.

It's an issue with multiple displays,

Even that can be mitigated by angling the displays towards your chair appropriately. Although I'm extremely picky about keyboards, I tend to buy cheap-ass monitors (go figure).

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

Shouldn't be close for audio- but that does depend on what you're listening through, which can be more important.

The real question for headphones lies in the quality of the amplifier, along with circuit isolation; the software can also make a big difference depending on the game or application that's being piped through.

For gaming, Creative's latest 'Z' series seems to have stolen the cake, with a very well rounded and high quality package. The audio solution on that GD65 appears to be a Realtek ALC898 with some Creative software; it doesn't look bad at all, but I wouldn't make it a critical feature. If I didn't have my X-Fi, I'd be looking at a base Soundblaster Z.

Airmantharp wrote:Shouldn't be close for audio- but that does depend on what you're listening through, which can be more important.

The real question for headphones lies in the quality of the amplifier, along with circuit isolation; the software can also make a big difference depending on the game or application that's being piped through.

For gaming, Creative's latest 'Z' series seems to have stolen the cake, with a very well rounded and high quality package. The audio solution on that GD65 appears to be a Realtek ALC898 with some Creative software; it doesn't look bad at all, but I wouldn't make it a critical feature. If I didn't have my X-Fi, I'd be looking at a base Soundblaster Z.

Digitimes wrote: Gigabyte Technology shipped 4.9 million motherboards in the first quarter, only slightly behind Asustek Computer's five million units, allowing the company to have a chance to beat the long-time leader in terms of shipments in 2013, according to source from channel retailers.

Asustek and Gigabyte together shipped about 40 million motherboards in 2012, accounting for 45-47% of the total shipments worldwide and their combined market share in China even reached 60% in the year.

ASRock was the third-largest motherboard vendor in 2012, shipping seven million units, followed by Micro-Star International (MSI) with six million units, Elitegroup Computer System (ECS) and Biostar around 4.9-5.1 million units and Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) around 2.8-3 million units.

Intel shipped five million motherboards in 2012, but will phase out from the industry in 2013.

Currently, Asustek has shipment leads in China and the US, while Gigabyte has good performances in both Latin America and Southeast Asia. Asustek is set to ship 22-24 million motherboards for 2013, while Gigabyte is aiming to challenge a volume of 20 million units.

So I'm looking at building a dedicated streaming PC once again and I'm exploring the possibility of using a mini-ITX mobo paired with an i5-4570. After some research I've found that the 4570 uses Intel HD 4600 onboard graphics, which is roughly equivalent to a Geforce GT 440. My question is will this level of onboard performance allow for a high quality stream without the use of a separate graphics card? The only PCI slot on the board would then be occupied by the capture card. Thanks in advance!

JustAnEngineer wrote:To be clear: You're wanting to build a stand-alone PC that does nothing but capture, encode and upload your stream? For that purpose, Haswell's integrated HD 4600 graphics should be fine.

I'm not a big fan of Mini-ITX. Micro-ATX gives you 4 PCIe slots instead of 1.

Correct. I would use the capture PC to encode/stream from my main PC (I updated my initial post on this thread with what I'm strongly considering for that main build).

As for the mini ITX aspect, it's basically a barebones, small streaming PC so I didn't see the need for a Micro ATX mobo that would have more PCIe's that I wouldn't use anyway. Aiming for a small portable setup with this build.

Do you have SSD, hard-drive, Blu-ray burner and card reader already picked out?

Ehhh!? The X-fi Titanium HD is discontinued? No mention of that on Newegg's store. Simply currently out of stock, didn't find anything to the contrary after a quick search for any info on it being discontinued.....

The SSD, etc. I've already settled on. I looked at those Z87 mobos already, specifically the MSI and Gigabyte Micro ATXs. Also I should of noted this before but I'm not necessarily planning the build with those components on the 1st post, it's more of what I'm researching individually. For example the 4770K paired with that B85 MSI mobo isn't the greatest of combinations for a few reasons (why buy an unlocked cpu with a mobo that isn't for overclocking?).

I'm just trying to research all available possibilities in the hopes of gaining a greater understanding for PC hardware.